[thelist] VOIP / Project Question

[Jeff Wilhelm]

Wow, I certaintly got a lot more replies than I was originally expecting.
Thank you all VERY much for taking the time to help me out. At the same time
as I was reading your helpful responses, I was also doing some research on
my own. I am pretty familiar with VoIP both personally (I have Vonage at
home) and professionally (we are doing a rollout inhouse) but this whole
Kosovo thing kind of threw me a little.

So here's where I am now. Because the phone calls have to originate from the
laptop in Kosovo and terminate on normal phones (in the USA) as well as
appear they are coming from the USA, I am going to go with some SoftPhone
software installed on the laptop and a USB headset. I wanted to go with
Vonage because I am very happy with them, but unfortunately you can't JUST
get their SoftPhone. Same with Packet8 and a few of the other ones. Belkin
however offers a service called callEverywhere (http://www.everywhere.net/)
in which software can be installed on the laptop, and unlimited calls can be
made for $20/mo. There is also no contract to sign, and this is perfect for
what we need, as I am not sure how many minutes my boss is expecting these
people to be making calls.

You know what, I didn't even realize this, but they must be doing this at
night in order to reach business in the USA. Hm. 

Anyway, so I got a quote from Dell on 4 laptops, and 4 USB Headsets. I went
with the Plantronics DSP-100s -- any comments on those? The laptops I got
were Inspiron 1150s (P4 2.8, 512MB RAM, 40GB Drive, 14" XGA, WinXP...).
Probably overkill for what we are doing here, but I figure once this project
is done I can retire them back into my department and give them out to the
"low-power" users that just need Word and Email on the road, instead of
buying them the standard Latitude D600s we normally give out. 4 laptops and
4 headsets came to a little over $4000.

So, I think we're good to go! I spoke with a coworker who just returned from
overseas, and she assured me that most any airport sells the power
converters we will need. I think I will go that route, just to make sure we
get the right ones for the country :).

Again, I appreciate all of your help, and I hope you all have a great
evening!

As long as they don't send ME to Kosovo to set this up, I'll be happy ;).

Jeff